Black sheep in the European Parliament

The European Parliament's biggest political group is divided over how to deal with the hard-line positions taken by its affiliates in Eastern Europe on the migration crisis.

Members of the center-right European People's Party are split over whether Hungary's ruling party Fidesz should be evicted for what some consider the authoritarian policies of its leader Viktor Orbán — or lauded for advocating stronger border patrols.

The EPP is not alone in having an Eastern European problem: its center-left rivals, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats, include Slovakia's SMER, whose leader Prime Minister Robert Fico has said his country was "built for Slovaks, not for minorities." The S&D leader in Parliament has called for Fico and SMER to be suspended from the group, as have the Greens.

“The Fidesz party no longer has a place in the EPP” — Viviane Reding, MEP

But the EPP has a longer and deeper history of trouble with Orbán’s Fidesz, whose increasingly uncompromising response to the massive arrival of refugees is fueling internal disagreement in the EPP over whether the Hungarians belong in the group.

The divisions have become sharper in recent weeks, as the crisis has escalated. The EPP group is now under mounting pressure from within to clarify what it wants to do with its 11 Fidesz members.

“The Fidesz party no longer has a place in the EPP,” said Viviane Reding, an MEP from Luxembourg and a former justice commissioner. Reding believes her Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) is the only one to take a firm stand, and she deplores what she considers the “silence and complacency” of other MEPs in the face of Orbán’s “uninhibited populism.”

"The EPP, founded 40 years ago in Luxembourg, has shaped the construction of Europe, I am profoundly attached and proud of my political family,” said Reding.

The final straw

Fidesz joined the EPP group after it won 11 seats in the 2014 European elections. But his introduction of tough laws on his nation’s press last year, and proposal this year to reinstate the death penalty, led some members of the group to question whether the party should remain a member.

Hungary’s decision to build a fence along its border with Serbia to block the flow of migrants, and its reluctance to accept the European Commission’s plan to relocate thousands of migrants, have made some in the EPP even more hostile to Fidesz.

The final straw for some was Orbán's statement that Hungary needed to secure its borders against mainly Muslim migrants “to keep Europe Christian.”

But not everybody at the EPP wants Fidesz out of the group.

"It is not about saying 'Fidesz people are good or bad'" — Philippe Juvin, MEP

Joseph Daul, the president of the EEP’s pan-European party, called him a “friend” in a recent interview with POLITICO. And Manfred Weber, leader of the EPP group in the parliament, defended Orbán’s decision to control his border and fight people smugglers.

“We don't have to agree on every detail but Orbán has our support in securing the Schengen external borders, fulfilling his duty — contrarily to other EU member states — as foreseen by the Schengen and Dublin rules,” Weber said. “Our Fidesz colleagues within the EPP group do very valuable work. They support the EPP group's positions with conviction and discipline.”

Weber’s party, Germany's Christian Social Union, came under fire recently after Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer told a party meeting this week that Orbán “deserves support, not criticism.” Seehofer’s comments infuriated German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to political sources in Berlin.

Other EPP members are caught in the middle. Herbert Reul, a German member of the EPP who is from Merkel's Christian Democrats, called Orban and Seehofer’s comments “cheap populism.”

Screw loose

However, Reul is ambivalent about Orbán and says that evicting his supporters from the EPP wouldn’t solve the problem.

“I have defended Orban for a long time, saying that he is right on some issues like the need to control the borders and to fight smugglers,” Reul said. “But the treatment of refugees in the camps is unacceptable. I just cannot accept it, it’s as easy as that.”

Reul referred to NGO reports that Hungarian authorities had mistreated migrants and said he got into a “fight” with Orbán at a group meeting in May over the death penalty.

“I told him that introducing death penalty would be out of question. I talked to him very critically and very openly, and said to him that ‘Whoever plays with such things has a screw loose.’”

Other politicians say the EPP is willing to keep Orbán in the party because ejecting him would have implications for the balance of power in the Parliament. They say privately that the EPP doesn’t want to take the risk of losing a dozen MEPs.

“The matter is complex, and it is not about saying 'Fidesz people are good or bad,'" said Philippe Juvin, another member of the EPP. Juvin said the German handling of the migration crisis — which lurched from an open-doors policy to a sudden reversal and closure of its borders — hadn’t helped ease divisions within the party.

For Juvin, the matter is not just centered on Orbán himself, but also on the differences of approach between MEPs from Eastern and Western Europe, who often clash on divisive topics such as migration and the recent crisis in Ukraine.

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ExLiberal

The EU Parliament is a joke,
Just like the EU.
It’s Junckers et al. that are the problem–not Fidesz.

Posted on 9/25/15 | 9:50 PM CET

Alan Ritchie

No-one stands for election as a member of the EPP, it is simply a label attached to an assortment of national political parties, elected on their own national electorates & on their manifesto’s which have decided that EPP is the least worst label of convenience.

Perhaps Reding has failed to notice that things have changed over the last 40 years, the political climate continues to change & this is reflected in the policies of the various national parties which have adopted EPP as their flag of convenience. Perhaps she & her party are the ones out of step with the prevailing mood/momentum of change & might be better off in some other grouping!

Posted on 9/25/15 | 10:58 PM CET

Look Who's Talking

Why do these people self-appoint themselves to be moral judges of others?

Why not do the reverse? Why shouldn’t the FIDESZ ask for the removal of Viviane Reding and other MEP members to be kicked out of the EPP?

Posted on 9/26/15 | 4:22 AM CET

ľubomír drinka

I don’t like fico, but I am sure he didn’t say that.
I was thinking politico have better translators.

Posted on 9/27/15 | 4:21 PM CET

CBA

“Fidesz joined the EPP group after it won 11 seats in the 2014 European elections.” Eh? The party has been a member since 1996…

Posted on 9/28/15 | 2:06 PM CET

agx

EU will be dead in a few years. What will be be instead? I’m afraid that will be black hole in the place of Germany. I’m not sure what will be in the place of France – maybe French Islamic State. Hungary and Slovakia will be in their places.